something: April 2007

25 April 2007

Remembering...

Concentration camp Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg_ 2007

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Sachsenhausen - Oranienburg

Location: Germany, 35 km from Berlin
Established: 1938
Liberation: April 22th, 1945, by a unit of the 47th Soviet Army.
Estimated number of victims: 30 - 35,000

In September 1939, thousands of communists, social-democrats and former trade union leaders were arrested in Germany. 5,000 of them were sent to Sachsenhausen, as well as 900 Jews. End of September 1939, there were 8,384 prisoners in the camp. In November 1939, this number increased dramatically to 11,311 prisoners. At this time, the first Typhus epidemic started. Because the SS refused to give any medical care and due to the incredible lack of food, hundreds of inmates died in the following weeks (...)

Like all other Nazi concentration camps, the conditions of life in Sachsenhausen were incredibly barbaric. There were daily executions by shooting or hanging (...)

The camp was liberated by a unit of the 47th Soviet Army on April 22th, 1945. The Soviet soldiers found only 3,000 survivors in the camp. This number included 1,400 women. Most of them were starving, ill and too weak to welcome their liberators. Like in several other camps, and despite of the medical cares they received, many inmates died in the days following the liberation.

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